OLD TOWN CAN BE A MISNOMER

Note to Wildomar: While the concept of creating a town center at Central and Palomar streets certainly has merit and should be pursued, let’s drop the “Old Town” banter.

Truth be told, Wildomar never really had a town center. Since its inception in the late 1800s, this little community — sandwiched by Murrieta to the south and Lake Elsinore to the north, along the Interstate 15 corridor — has been a confederation of small ranches and farms, with no large commercial center to speak of. Today, you’ve got a handful of businesses around the crossroads of Central and Palomar, mostly in a pair of strip malls on the west side of Palomar, but these can hardly be construed as much of a town center.

I love the “downtown” concept proposed by RBF, the consulting firm hired by the 4-year-old city and funded through a $110,000 grant from a Southern California Association of Governments Compass Blueprint initiative.

But the “Old Town” name has got to go.

In planning circles, “Old Town” has become one of many clichés we really should stay away from. If Wildomar had a 19th- century one-room schoolhouse or a turn-of-the-century courthouse, like Old Town San Diego, or heck, Old Town Albuquerque, the “Old Town” moniker would be appropriate.

But as Gertrude Stein once wrote of Oakland, “There is no there there.”

If Wildomar wants to create a town center, it will have to build one. And from what I gather, that’s the idea — according to an article in this paper, the so-called “Old Town” concept could include “the construction of a town hall and other public buildings, quaint commercial uses, two-story mixed-use buildings, and the inclusion of equestrian trails and possibly a horse-friendly center near the Wildomar Cemetery.”

That doesn’t sound like any sort of “Old Town” to me. No mention of “preservation,” historic,” “restoration” or any of those other words we typically associate with Old Towns.

I know I’m probably being over picky — after all, as another writer, William Shakespeare, wrote, “What’s in a name?” — but revitalization efforts all over Southern California, and probably all over the country, have been marked by a misguided monkey-see, monkey-do attitude that invariably winds up severely limiting their potential.

Once we call the plan “Old Town,” what’s to stop planners from imposing architectural guidelines that conform to the weary “Old West” or “Spanish-style” theme so prevalent around these parts?

Just take a look at El Camino Real, the old king’s highway, in coastal San Diego and Orange counties. Community after community has imposed “Spanish-style” restrictions on developments along that corridor, resulting in a bland, homogenous sea of red-tile roofs and pale stucco walls.

The fact that Wildomar can create a town center from the ground up is a refreshing blessing. Let’s not blow it with a potentially stifling name.